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Rice Rituals
The divine rice plant is the source of all life and wealth, a gift of the gods. Rice rituals differ depending upon place, time, and situation, but all over Bali huge importance is placed on the growing of the island's single most important food crop. As in other areas of Balinese life, women prepare the offerings, designed to gain the goodwill of the deities who provide water and other favorable conditions for a successful harvest. Before each planting season, the head of the local 'subak' undertakes a trip to the Mountain Lake of Bratan to ask Batara Wisnu ('Provider of Water') for his assistance. A few drops of water from the lake are symbolically splashed in each rice field before planting begins. Just as rite-of-passage ceremonies mark stages in a person's life, prayers and rituals accompany every cycle of growth in the life of the rice plant. Germination of the seedbed, the planting, the plant's first birthday (42 days), ripening, Dewi Sri's 'pregnancy', harvest, and at last a thanksgiving ceremony (ngusaba nini) in which a handsome meter-high cone of cooked white rice is offered up to Dewi Sri in the 'subak' temple. Small bamboo shrines, resembling Thai spirit houses, stand at the corners of every 'sawah' to hold the offerings dedicated to such agricultural deities as Ibu Pertiwi ('Mother Earth'), Surya (the sun-god), Batara Wisnu, and Dewi Sri, the lissome and beautiful rice goddess. Dewi Sri's deified effigy, fashioned from rice stalks, is found everywhere in the rice fields until the harvest is completed, when it's moved to an elevated place in granaries (lumbung) located in the backyard of almost every Balinese domestic courtyard. To discourage the evil spirits, who are accountable for seed loss by birds and mice, offerings of flowers, rice, and eggs are laid before the shrine. Cockfights may also be held to satisfy the spirits' bloodlust. |
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